Maja Djerek, a former employee at the state property management company Drzavne Nekretnine, completed her deposition to USKOK corruption investigators on Monday related to "irregularities with state-owned business premises and apartments," state agency Hina said.

Speaking to the press outside the USKOK office, Djerek said that she could not discuss details of her deposition, citing confidentiality. She stood by her recent statements to the press in which she implicated Defence Minister Mario Banozic, who had previously served as Minister for State Assets.

Djerek spoke of a meeting where Banozic had yelled at her and demanded that she unseal business premises. As a former head of the department for business premises, she said that there had been a lot of cases of favouritism.

“The government did not know what it had in its possession, and business premises had been used illegally for years without anyone checking,” Đerek said, adding that enormous damage had been done to the state budget.

She said she had discovered 24 lease contracts for which no bills had been issued, but that she had managed to invoice them.

Đerek said in Parliament last Tuesday she had been fired from Drzavne Nekretnine a few months after reporting acts of corruption and wrongdoing. She said there were a lot of state-owned premises and apartments for which use was not charged, lease contracts were not invoiced, business premises were used illegally and subleased, and that her superiors protected certain persons.

Banozic says has seen Đerek only once

Minister Banozic today rejected all the accusations, saying that Djerek was not a whistleblower but “the whistle of an interest group” and that he had seen her only once in his life “at a meeting.”

Banozic said Djerek sealed the premises of a family he did not know, had no contact with and about whose business he knew nothing.

The state attorney’s office is conducting litigation worth millions in connection with those premises and “no action can be taken about those business premises without agreement with the state attorney’s office,” he added.

Banozic said that when he saw Djerek at a meeting, he asked her on what grounds she had sealed the premises “and if she knew that Croatia might lose millions as a consequence.”

According to him, Djerek said she sealed the premises at her own responsibility and he did not ask her to do so.

“As far as I’m concerned, that story is over. There is the Conflict of Interest Commission, given that she accused me of having chosen my flat.”

Banozic said that if Djerek was at USKOK, he wanted the matter to be cleared up and that she  herself could say why she had made defamatory statements.

He said that according to a court sentence, Djerek’s firing was not due to any reports, and that “people often complained about her.”

Djerek’s accusations were rejected today also by the Drzavne Nekretnine state assets management company.

Banozic went on to say that in recent months he had been a victim of serious attacks and that this was evident in the media sphere.

“I touched on many topics at the ministry that hadn’t been touched for years. I am sure that after certain processes in the ministry, we will realise that there are interest groups,” he said, adding that he could not say more as it concerned state secrets.